A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by nostrademons on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:59PM (#14649910)

I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove. Whatever we saved in cutting was lost in opening & sorting through all the individually-wrapped ingredient packages.

BTW, a good set of kitchen tools makes meal prep go a lot faster. When I moved in with my now-wife, she had a couple requests for new kitchen goods that were non-negotiable. A good sharp kitchen knife, a mandolin slicer, and a salad spinner. They really make a huge difference - before, it could take me an hour to prep a simple pasta dish, afterwards, it's like 15 minutes. Washing vegetables now basically means dumping all of them into the salad spinner, swishing them around, and turning the crank twice, for a total of 5 minutes. Cutting or dicing an onion can be done in under a minute, regardless of the cut desired.

Together these cost a lot less than a Blue Apron subscription, and you can use them for years. And the quality of fresh farmer's market ingredients really can't be beat.

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Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by dragonwriter on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @06:04PM (#14649954)

> I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove.

Blue Apron is cooking a meal from scratch (so, obviously, it doesn't save time in cooking.) The time saving is in shopping and inventory management.

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Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by nostrademons on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @06:11PM (#14650008)

Pre-cut & pre-measured ingredients, though, right? At least, that's what I remember their service being like, unless I'm confusing it with another delivery startup.

I don't personally get the timesavings of not going to the store, either - my wife or I will go after work, we have a list, it'll take half an hour and then we'll be done for the week. But then I realized that the target market for these services probably doesn't have a car and/or doesn't have a produce market a mile away. It makes a lot more sense if getting groceries is a half-hour trek just to get there and then you need to carry the bags back.

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Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by dragonwriter on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @06:17PM (#14650061)

> Pre-cut & pre-measured ingredients, though, right?

At least when I had BA (and judging by their current recipes, still now) measured, but not cut for the most part. You still prep the ingredients.

> I don't personally get the timesavings of not going to the store, either - my wife or I will go after work, we have a list, it'll take half an hour and then we'll be done for the week.

Meal kits means you aren't planning those meals, aren't making a shopping list for what is needed for those meals, and aren't shopping for those meals.

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Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by manarth on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @07:11PM (#14650417)

  "doesn't have a produce market a mile away"

I have a produce market 10 minutes walk from my home - unfortunately, my working patterns prevent me from using it except on extremely rare occasions.

Supermarkets do have much longer opening hours that fit with my working patterns, but sadly don't have the quality of produce as my local farmers' market.

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Re:A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry by manarth on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @07:08PM (#14650396)

I think much of that is around knowing that these tools exist, understanding their benefits (to the point of recognising the ROI in spending the money on a quality knife, a mandolin, etc), and then using them to the point where the ROI starts to pay off.

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